This is a remake of the allegedly classic 1968 movie
which I haven't seen, and which stars Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, who makes
a token appearance in this one as Crown's psychiatrist. Thomas Crown is a
billionaire who steals a priceless painting from a museum in New York
presumably because he's bored. Denis Leary plays a detective who has to solve
the case, with the help of insurance investigator and bounty hunter Catherine
Banning.
Pierce Brosnan seems to be basically a stereotypical Hollywood
"actor" who just plays himself in a slightly different costume. He
can almost get away with it playing Bond but really it was rather a lame
performance this time. We don't really learn anything about Crown other than
that he's rich and arrogant, used to getting his own way, and likes paying
games (and winning). Rene Russo is good at first but her character, although
slightly more interesting, is so clichéd and boring - after initially
being determined to recover the painting from the arrogant Crown she of course
falls in love with him (after seeing him with his yacht and being whisked off
gliding and then to Mauritius), sees him with someone else and gets stroppy,
then he explains, then they make up. It's so predictable that it's not even
fun, and he's in control of her emotions all the time without showing any of
his. What sort of investigator is she meant to be anyway, and what sort of cop
is Denis Leary. It's a bit unlikely that he'd be on the case. I can just
picture the scene: "someone's just stolen a $500 million painting, oh I
know we'll call PC Plod, who's a complete idiot and doesn't give a toss about
it anyway".
The direction by John McTiernan, who is best known for Die Hard, is
bog-standard for the most part although the heist scenes are almost impressive,
if a bit ridiculous. The sex scenes however are just silly and there's
no chemistry between the leads or indeed any reason for them to be
attracted to each other. In fact the whole movie really doesn't make much sense
but maybe that's just me: the cinema was crammed when I saw it but I
hope it was overspill from the other screens. The script is fairly
second rate although Rene Russo does have some good lines near the start (in
between advertising fizzy drinks) long before the whole thing gets absurd, when
they're almost having a battle of wits. People have said it's witty, but that's
only if you're comparing it to most other new movies, and it wasn't thrilling
either. So all in all a poor effort.
(no stars)
The Players:
Pierce Brosnan as Thomas Crown
Rene Russo as Catherine Banning
Denis Leary as some cop
written by Ed in August 1999